


Frost in Denial

by ridiculoustales



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: M/M, Raijin Days, Winter, izaya doesn't look where the fuck he's going, shizuo is still a high schooler so he's less pissed, shizuo's really surprised to hear his name, this is short but whatever, umm what do i even tag this lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2018-12-13 10:51:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11758287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ridiculoustales/pseuds/ridiculoustales
Summary: “Shizuo?”It shouldn’t be strange to hear the name.  Lots of people at the school know of him, and it could be any one of them that end up blurting his name without an honorific in the first jolt of shock.But it’s the voice it's coming from that catches and holds Shizuo’s attention.(or Shizuo hears Izaya call him by his full name for the first time)





	1. Blatant

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a total sucker for the idea that Shizuo and Izaya could have gotten along in high school if Izaya had just nOT been the actual worst so here's a one-shot of a little piece that could have maybe altered Shizuo's perception of Izaya welp

In the winter everything seems to move slower, somehow, passing by in increments of time that feign eternity with the chill in the air. Shizuo hardly seems one to complain about this, though.

Winter has always been the time of the year when everyone else seems slower, too, and with that comes a decrease in the fights that he so loathes, the ones that cling to him in every step he takes no matter how deliberately careful, as though the frost that latches just as full-heartedly to the air as the brawls do to himself have begun tugging his opponents away from him instead of pushing them towards.

Today is no different, he thinks as he leaves the school, the bite in the wind catching his fleeting attention before drawing his focus to the pale of the pavement under him. Today seemed slower than usual, even, and Shizuo isn’t worried as much as he should be, considering his reputation, about the chance of a fight as he walks home. And for the first few meters of steps to take, he’s not thinking of anything at all, a rare piece of tranquility that he has yet to have in myriad forms.

He had decided to take the long way home this time, exiting the school from the back so that the walk would be longer, and it’s not until he’s at the front gate of the school that his mind flickers back into real awareness, not until a flash of black and red catches his gaze that he even thinks to look up from the dull of the pavement. But even as he does, even as his mind struggles for a moment to pick through the information to come to a conclusion of what could be happening, there’s a weight rushing into him and he’s stumbling back just as quickly in flitted reflex.

“Hey-“

“Shizuo?”

It shouldn’t be strange to hear the name. Lots of people at the school know of him, know his name, know the face and the blonde hair, and it could be any one of those people that end up blurting it without an honorific in the first jolt of shock.

But it’s the voice it's coming from that catches and holds Shizuo’s attention, the tone and the lilting edge it has to it that unsteadies everything Shizuo has had in these moments before.

_…Izaya?_

Sure enough, it’s Izaya that’s blurted the name, his eyes wide at the startle of running into someone, of running into _Shizuo_ , his voice oddly high and softer than Shizuo has heard, let alone expected from him. It freezes him in place, to see and hear Izaya so out of character and with none other than Shizuo’s name on his tongue to go along with all the strangeness of it.

He thinks he should say something, like an insult, or he should swing to punch him, or reach for the stop sign just feet away from him and crumple it under his hand without thinking of grace or practicality so that he can hit Izaya with it; but he can’t move in this instant, can’t think of anything to do that will allow his body or mouth to move in the way his brain wants it to. Instead he just stares, his face probably just as shocked as Izaya’s, he thinks, but then again how could anyone look as shocked as Izaya right now, as if he has capitulated under the force of everything he’s ever learned and ended up scarred with the disturbance of it.

He looks somehow smaller in this state, younger than he’s ever looked to Shizuo before but he supposes that’s what he’s _supposed_ to look like at their age, like the world is still new and there are still things that can surprise him.

Even with the hatred Shizuo is supposed to feel at even the swiftest sight of him, he can’t in this moment, can’t even gather the tiniest bit of annoyance it would take to growl something nasty towards him that might lift the infamous smirk back up to his lips to dissipate the part of shock it has on it now.

But just as Shizuo _is_ gathering the willpower to open his mouth and lower his eyebrows in feigned annoyance, Izaya is rushing away from him in the opposite direction of where he’s faced.

“Ah-“

He doesn’t catch up fast enough, but it doesn’t matter much, not with the shock still weighting down anything he could have mustered as ire or anything close to fall from his mouth.

Shizuo watches him go for a moment, neck strained and shoulder turned so he can get a better look at how fast Izaya is trailing away from behind him. He’s never seen Izaya in such a casual rush before, either, and this addition just confuses him even more until he resigns himself to letting it go to continue on his way home. But even then he doesn’t start walking again, even then he’s still in the same spot he was when Izaya ran into him, the first and only time Shizuo has ever heard the syllables of his full name on his tongue.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t irritate him nearly as much as he thought it might, not in the soft of sound that Izaya gave it.

Maybe he was faking it, maybe he was messing with him, but when Shizuo starts to walk again he feels the sudden chip of cold jolt up his legs, and he remembers that it’s winter, and remembers the strange effect it has on everything in contact with it.

Everything including Izaya.


	2. Deny

In the entirety of his 16 years of existing, Izaya doesn’t think he’s ever despised the cold as much as he does in this moment.  He’s forgotten his coat—left on a kitchen table that is less used than gazed over for mere seconds, before sliding off to the side where his sisters usually sit when they eat.  None of them use the table—for eating or storage or _anything_ —it’s much easier to just completely avoid it and thus avoid having to clean it when his parents show up back home, so Izaya doesn’t know why he set his coat where he did this morning.

But it doesn’t hold his focus for more than a few rushed steps out of the school, when he huffs the vague color of his breath into the air and sticks his hands in the pockets of his pants in lieu of the coat that should be over his shoulders instead.  He tries to ignore it the best he can, distraction of the reason for his leaving in such haste enough to block out the cold to the point of simple irritation, at best.

He should have left earlier, thinking back.  The only reason he didn’t was because Shinra insisted on apprising him on the “date” he and Celty had the night before, which consisted of nothing more than casual conversation between the two of them at a dinner table in their own home.

Izaya scoffs thinking about it, and turns back to frowning as he remembers what he should be giving his attention to right now.  His sisters have caused more trouble at school, this time to the razor-cut point of injury, both figuratively and literally.  The call had come when Izaya wasn’t expecting one, but it was more than apparent when the woman started speaking what had happened.  He likes to think he’s become pretty good at noticing the cues in people’s voices and body language for the most part, and doesn’t discount this particular noticing.  He smirks to himself, despite the matter at hand.

His sisters have been hurt at school before—from scraping their knees on the pavement during an cool autumn morning that made them just a little too energetic, from cuts and scratches from getting into fights with other kids, and from falling while trying to reach candy that wasn’t meant for them in the first place.  But this is disparate, and even as indifferent as Izaya wants to convince himself he feels, he doesn’t, and he grits his teeth against the thought as he quickens the pace in his steps.  But he doesn’t think about it again, as he comes to the gates of the school and fits his footsteps onto the pavement of almost-street.

But before he can even turn properly he’s stumbling back from an impact, face easing from its frown and straining on shock instead as he catches the all-too-familiar glare of bright blonde hair in the corner of his eye.

“Hey-“ Shizuo starts to snarl, clearly just as full of rage as ever before.  It would make Izaya smirk on any other occasion.

“Shizuo?” comes the sound from his throat, something unprepared and unwarranted in his own mind, as disbelief catches up with his mouth.  Shizuo freezes immediately, his ire evaporating as quickly as Izaya’s breath does in the chill of the atmosphere.

He’s never seen Shizuo look so surprised before, and it’s funny—it is, at least in his head—but there’s no room for the amusement to gather across his features in this strange, slow moment of half-denied worry for his sisters and irritation of the cold and the jolt of surprise of running into the last person he ever wants to—in a moment of unflattering humanness, no less.

Shizuo is just staring now, and Izaya feels a chill of not-weather-cold go down his spine, as he attempts to gauge what Shizuo might do to him while he’s shivering and not yet diving for his knife still tucked away from the reach of his fingers in the pocket that’s housing his chill-scathed hands.

But he supposes that he’s staring too, his eyes still wide on the immediate shock and his mouth still open to the cold, frozen in place by nothing more than simple discomfort of chill and mild curiosity of something he considers to be non-human, acting so human.

He notices vaguely how bright Shizuo’s hair is when the sun is just beginning to set, and wonders just as vaguely if he’s ever had any other hair color other than blonde, though he knows full well the answer.  He can’t gauge any kind of real reaction from him the longer Izaya stares, but he supposes it wouldn’t matter in the end anyway.  There are little pieces of questions forming in his head the longer Izaya’s looking at him, when suddenly he wonders if he should say something.

It doesn’t last long, though.  With the immediacy of time and the knowing that Izaya doesn’t have an excess amount of it at the moment, he goes to turn before Shizuo can say anything, or pull out a stop sign from the ground, or attempt to smash the knuckles of his fist into Izaya’s body.  Izaya turns quickly, not bothering to feign any kind of expression, leaving it to the one he has on now, rushing once more across the pavement in the direction of his sisters’ school.

He can hear Shizuo make a sound behind him, but he doesn’t look back, only quickens his pace against the freezing resistance of the air and continues on.

He doesn’t want to think about the moment of unrestrained humanity that both of them just had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2, Izaya's POV- done! It's winter now so it kind of makes more sense for this story lol. I didn't originally plan on writing any more to this one-shot but someone mentioned they wondered why Izaya was in such a rush, so I thought it would be fun to write his POV of this little moment. As for past this, I'm not planning on doing anything more with it unless I really really feel like it could go somewhere. Anyway, hope you enjoyed! :D


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